Amazon announces WorkMail, a cloud e-mail and calendar service for corporate clients

Amazon is going after Microsoft and Google in the corporate e-mail sector. The e-commerce giant on Wednesday announced a new service based on Amazon Web Services called Amazon WorkMail which it describes as a managed business e-mail and calendaring service in the cloud.

WorkMail allows users to pull off common tasks like sending and receiving e-mail, managing contacts, sharing calendars and booking resources. The service is compatible with the same applications that customers are already familiar with such as Outlook or native Android and iOS e-mail apps.

All data sent is encrypted and thanks to AWS Key Management Service, customers retain control of the encryption keys. What’s more, enterprise customers get to select the physical location their data is stored by choosing the AWS Region they see fit.

Up to this point, Microsoft has largely dominated this space although Google has made a push as of late. For Amazon, it’s just another step as they look to diversify from a pure e-commerce company into a corporate technology partner.

According to Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian, e-mail services could bring in as much as $1 billion per year.

Amazon is currently offering a free 30-day trial of WorkMail for up to 25 users. Once the service officially launches this spring, customers will need to cough up $4 per user per month which includes 50GB of storage per user.